Wesley Hunt's Issues with The Green New Deal

The J I'm also not a big fan of a government saying when an industry is supposed to end. Yes. I'm a big fan of the government empowering the private sector to innovate to get to the next affordable renewable source that's going to happen. It's my opinion if Jeff Bezos doesn't get there first, the first trillionaire and my opinion who's already born is going to be the person that comes up with an abundant renewable source for the future that everyone can afford. Now I get the green new deal and attendance of it what they're trying to do, but what's not addressed in that is global warming and the operative word being global. If we don't get India and China and Russia and Africa and South America to reduce their carbon footprint with us, you can literally destroy the oil and gas industry here in the US at no gain to the globe. That doesn't make sense to me. That is such an important point. That's so important. Nobody's talking about the other countries. So China and India are building four coal plants per month. It's not a case of if we build it, they will they will come. That's not how this works. In fact, our energy independence is also an issue of national security as well. We're energy independent. Why? Because of fracking that, quite frankly, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris actually want to do away with by 2035 as well. It's actually a national agenda. And so we are reducing our carbon footprint because of fracking, because natural gas burns cleaner. But most importantly, Joe, 20 years ago, we would kill a bad guy in the Middle East and then we have to turn around and ask these same countries for resources and oil. That's a conflict of interest, if you can imagine. Of course. So we don't have to do that anymore. So when we kill Qasem Soleimani outside of Baghdad Airport, who was a bad guy responsible for actually killing some West Point graduates, actually in Iraq, we don't have to ask them for oil. So this is an issue where we have to marry economics, innovation and of course, make sure that we are good stewards of this earth. Right. But right now, there's roughly one billion with a B, roughly one billion light trucks and vehicles in the world today that are gas powered. And over the course of the next 20 years, the world is going to add another billion vehicles. And of that billion, 750 million of them are going to be gas powered. Again, it's not a California problem. It's a global issue that we have to take a look at from a defense standpoint. I flew Apache helicopters and we have a joke in the army. How do you know if if somebody flew Apaches? We will tell you. We always do. And what's funny about the Apache and about destroyers and about F-22s and that's you can't fuel them on solar and wind. We literally aren't going anywhere for the next few generations. What I want to hear the conversation shift to is more of the idea of us working with these oil and gas companies to innovate for the future. And they want it to. It's a matter of time until we get there, but let's bring them along with the conversation and not demonize them. And as somebody that's Houston born and bred, this is the conversation that's near and dear to my heart, because again, it's the energy capital of the world. And I am all for solar. I am all for wind. I am all for renewables. I get it. But it's a combination of all of the above, not not an ore conversation. Now, let's what is the Green New Deal? Can you lay that out for us? Yes. What are they what are they looking to do? It is the Green New Deal. You know, one big thing that Joe Biden talks about and what Bernie Sanders was talking about as well is being carbon neutral by 2035, which effectively is an end to the oil and gas industry in the United States. That that's one that's one tenet of it. Another one is fracking bans. And again, as I just articulated, this is the very technology that's actually reducing our carbon footprint. Also, just more restrictions on oil and gas companies to be able to drill and find resources as well. And it is a job killer in Houston, Texas, particularly as we recover from covid-19. And we've been hit pretty hard because if you notice, the oil and gas industry has been hit pretty hard to start it off with just obviously a shortage of of of demand because people just stopped driving. And that really drove costs down tremendously. And so we have to recover from this thing. And the way to do it is not to employ more restrictions on an already hurting industry that, quite frankly, has got to be around. Rather, you like it or not. Also, the byproducts of petrochemicals as well. This microphone, this mug, your phone, hydrocarbons, the shoes on your feet is all byproducts of the oil and gas industry. And so what people don't realize is that the chairs that they sit in, the silverware that they eat off of, where they eat, sleep, breathe and live, the mattress that they're sleeping on, it's fossil fuels. We literally aren't going anywhere. I understand the benevolence of the Green New Deal. It's always good in theory. I got it. I think I think if we can magically snap our fingers and the world could be just carbon neutral, that that that sounds great. That sounds great. But that's not how that's not how this works. We are always about progression. This country is always about innovation and progression. We've been doing this for generations. Let's continue that progression by enabling, again, the private sector to innovate to the next level. If you're paying attention to what the Green New Deal says, it basically just demonizes an entire industry. And I think for a lack of understanding what the industry does for the world. Is there in the Green New Deal, is there a solution for what they deem the problems of the oil and gas industry? Do they have a replacement for those resources? So there lies a point. Hydrocarbons are a storable energy that have a lot of power in them. And that's actually the reason why the world uses them. Bottom line is, is this you can't turn your lights on. The world can't turn their lights on. The US can't turn their lights on for the time being without oil and gas. Well, you want the gas industry. If we were able to miraculously even attempt to turn this entire country into a renewable source, it's just not possible. I don't know exactly what the numbers are, but we would actually only be able to fuel less than last I read 8 percent of our world, of the United States' energy demands if we were able to completely transform to renewable resources. So that's just wind and solar? That's wind, solar and battery, lithium ion, these kinds of things. But they also require something to charge them. Yes. What about nuclear? Because one of the things that is really uncomfortable for people is that nuclear power is one of the cleanest sources of power that we know of. It's just we know about disasters. We know about Fukushima. We know about Three Mile Island. We know about Chernobyl. We know about these disasters, which in many cases are indicative of old technology like Fukushima. They really didn't know how to shut it down, which is fucking bananas that they decided to build it anyway. Mind boggling. They're like, we'll figure it out later. But there's ways of doing nuclear right where you have very little environmental damage. That's right. But that's a you just bring up nuclear power and everybody's like, we're going to die. That's right. It freaks out. Yeah. And they're nature noble. What do you think about nuclear? So this is this is, again, the importance of innovation. You brought up an excellent point. You see, in the past technologies, we didn't have the ability to be able to really create something without understanding what the worst outcomes could possibly be. Do you think over the course of the last 50 years, we've actually advanced to know more and to be able to do better and to be more effective with how we how we do this? Of course we have. Right. But it kind of goes back to the oil and gas industry as well. When you have the over demonization of an energy source, people just as we were talking about, they just shut it off. Right. It becomes a headline. That's it. I don't want anything else to do with it. Oh, no, we saw a bad incident. That's it. It becomes headline news instead of us saying, well, wait a minute. If you're going to try to tell me that 2020 was the same as the 70s and the 60s and the 50s from a technological standpoint, it's ridiculous. I mean, look at your Tesla that you drive. I mean, that is a technological marvel and advancement in itself. And now we're producing it on a mass scale. Thank you, Elon Musk. And again, even the production of the Tesla, that doesn't mean we do away with the oil and gas industry. Oh, we could have both. Let's continue to do both. So from a nuclear standpoint, I also think that that's got demonized as well because of some incidences. And we need to realize that from a technological standpoint, we are certainly further along than we were before. Let's pursue this. Let's empower these companies to come up with a safe way of building these these plants and also making sure that everybody can stay safe in the future. What I've actually heard discussed that's kind of fascinating is technologies that could be on the horizon that can actually pull carbon and pull particles from the atmosphere. That they can develop essentially enormous air filters that can be used in high pollution areas and cities and urban centers. And they actually can pull pollution out of the air and potentially use that carbon and it can actually be a resource. That's exactly right. Right. So tell me. Think about that. Pretty crazy. But it kind of makes sense, right? Like if you can put it out there, then it's there. Well, if you can push it out, can you extract it? It seems like you should be able to mean we were extract nitrogen from the atmosphere. Right. I mean, that's how they make a lot of fertilizer. There's got to be a way to take that carbon out. Of course there is. And again, people want to look at where we are right now. Maybe we aren't there now. Right. But we can easily be there in the not so distant future. Sure. Well, 150 years ago, we were riding horses. Thank you. Yeah. And think about what you just said. That wasn't that long ago, by the way. That's pretty recent. That's crazy. I mean, I mean, in World War I, in World War I, they were still using livestock. Yeah. Yeah. Bananas. I mean, think about that. I know. Yeah. And now we're flying Apaches. It's hard for people to, once they have it in their mind, that they are doing a good thing. Like the proponents of the Green New Deal, they are doing a good thing. This is the way. And anyone who opposes that or anyone who even has debate about it is on the wrong side. You are on the side of the fossil fuel industry. You've been paid off. You're a shill. Right. You don't care about the environment. You don't care about our children. And then they'll propose it this way, that this person does not care about the future of this country. We're going to burn. Look what's happening in California. This is Trump's fault. This is like we were discussing this in the podcast yesterday. It didn't matter who became president in 2016. The exact same conditions would be in place here. This battleship is an enormous thing. It's hard to turn around. You think that somehow or another if Hillary Clinton was president that California wouldn't be on fire right now? The exact same thing would be happening. 100%. There's no other way around it. And what I always say to people that have to have this conversation with, and again, I have two kids at the house. And it is my opinion at this point with two baby girls that it is incumbent upon us to make sure that we hand them a better world than we inherited. Yes. We were talking, like again, you know, the birth of a child is a spiritual thing. We're saying this before the broadcast. We're talking about your youngest and how crazy it is. It's crazy. It's like life changing. My youngest is 10, but still I think back and, you know, there's times when I'm alone where I just go, I can't even believe I have children. I can't even believe that it's a thing that a person who comes out of your own DNA is now walking and talking and hanging out with you. Yes. Yes. And destroying our living room. That's what we live and breathe. Yeah, for sure. So of course I care about, of course I care about them. And of course I care about the environment. I just want to take a pragmatic approach to making sure that. Yeah. Well, we're so polarized today. If you don't agree with me, you must be evil. And this is our perspective, or you must be naive or you must be foolish. These are the perspectives that are the narrative that you see on social media today, which is where so many people are forming their opinions and then arguing them. And it's insanity. It's such a crazy time where people want people. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine today. They were talking about this new social media platform where this person was arguing, don't hear people's opinions. What we need to do is deplatform them. Right. Like what this is, that's insane. So everybody has to agree with you and you don't, I don't even know if you're right. You don't even know if you're right. The way you find out if you're right. You got to talk to other people. Right. There's a lot of times I've talked to people and I went, huh, okay. Yeah, I'm wrong. Okay. Like that's important. That's the whole point. Yeah. You have to be able to have these conversations. What the proponents of the Green New Deal, what are they proposing in terms of replacing fossil fuels and these things that we're relying on currently to power everything and have the country running exactly how it's running now. And therein lies the problem. They're not. They're not. So what are they saying though, when they're, when they're questioning this, like, what are we going to do in 2035 in terms of like, how are we going to keep the lights on? I have no idea. Really? And this is, and this is literally, this is literally part of my problem. And that is if you aren't going to tell me a substantive, viable solution by if so, so if you want to say that's it, snap my fingers like Thanos, that's it. We're going to be carbon neutral here and okay. Okay. So what's the path to do? So what resources are we going to use to get there? How are we going to replace these resources? And again, I'm not a climate denier. I keep saying this over and over again, but, but nothing's being proposed. That's rational and reasonable. That's actually addressing global warming. Yeah. It completely leaves out the other countries. It completely leaves out the globe and that's problematic to me. Yes. Yeah. What they, so they're not even discussing it at all. No, they're just conveniently. It sounds good. It sounds good. Yeah. And it does sound good. Sounds amazing. We'll get me wrong. It sounds great, but the name of it, green new deal. Who doesn't like green things? It's beautiful. Episodes of the Joe Rogan experience are now free on Spotify. That's right. They're free from September 1st to December 1st. They're going to be available everywhere, but after December 1st, they will only be available on Spotify, but they will be free. That includes the video. The video will also be there. It'll also be free. That's all we're asking. Just go download Spotify. Much love. Bye.